Filmmakers Intent On Producing New Comic-book Movies

You`d think that after Universal-Lucasfilm`s big-budget fiasco Howard the Duck, movie companies wouldn`t be so intent on making comic-book movies.

But they are.

The independent film Brenda Starr is shooting with Brooke Shields and future 007 Timothy Dalton; the Cannon Group hopes to start production on Spiderman for 1987 release; the classic Belgian comic strip, The Adventures of TinTin, is being developed by Steven Spielberg`s Amblin` Entertainment with Melissa Mathison (E.T.) writing the script; and Warren Beatty has been talking about filming a Dick Tracy project for years.

More recently, Lawrence Gordon Productions picked up the rights to the hot new DC comic book Watchmen for Fox. The Watchmen universe (created by British writer Alan Moore) is 30 seconds from nuclear disaster and dominated by six militant superheroes. Joel Silver, producer of the Arnold Schwarzenegger pictures, is producing. Will we be seeing Schwarzenegger as the most powerful Watchman, the blue-skinned supersoldier Dr. Manhattan?